By me, with art by Sam Messerly.
Click here to read from the beginning.
First Pumpkin was a city of about thirty thousand, and the first of a clutch of towns and settlements founded by Cornelius Pumpkin, the great frontiersman and gourd enthusiast. It was said that Mr. Pumpkin had personally crossbred at least fifty different varieties of gourds, and while rumors persisted among some (delusional) individuals that pumpkins themselves were named after Mr. Pumpkin, apparently he was actually inspired by his last name to get into the gourd business. He argued that his own specially-cultivated “Pumpkin pumpkin” (I can’t make this stuff up) was the best for carving jack o lanterns, something about the stiffness of the rind and the pleasantness of the scent of the slop inside. Some of the other cities and towns founded by Mr. Pumpkin were Second Pumpkin, Middle Pumpkin, and Best Pumpkin.
He wasn’t very imaginative with the names he bestowed upon his settlements. Not that it’s either here nor there, but he also named his two sons Cornelius. Both of them.
So it was that we entered First Pumpkin via Fifth Pumpkin Street, and Colander (who was much more familiar with the area and knew where the target museum was located) directed me to turn onto 23rd Pumpkin Avenue, then onto Cornelius Boulevard toward the center of town. We were both tense, and neither of us spoke much. At least, not until we heard the explosions.
We saw the green shimmering against the sky long before we witnessed what was happening. Folks were running away from the scene, and folks drove like maniacs trying to escape from… something. I was nearly sideswiped several times by panicking drivers, first by a sedan, then by a man in an orange electric car that purred as he blasted down Cornelius Drive.
Pretty soon we saw the crackling, spitting green fire that danced along the streets and hovered menacingly over the buildings. Strangely, the conflagration didn’t seem to actually burn anything, but just floated inches over each physical surface, coughing and spitting chunks of green fire and lightning. We heard the sirens as well—police, firemen. We passed a team of firefighters futilely spraying water at a wall of green flame with little effect. When they saw us, they tried to wave us back, but for some reason I stubbornly drove past them, ignoring their warnings.
Just then, Warbell came dashing around the corner of Pass the Gas Station (a local fuel chain with flatulence-inspired decor), dodging and leaping over the sputtering green flames with unreal speed and dexterity. An eerie mellifluent honking roar reverberated through the air, morphing into a series of angry grunts and wheezes. While I didn’t see the source of the sound yet, it had to be the enormous orange rex that had visited my house, now chasing Warbell.
I put the truck in reverse, trying to back up.
“What is that noise?” asked Colander, covering her ears. “It sounds like a gaggle of giant geese getting slaughtered in the midst of a death metal concert.”
Before I had time to respond, and as Warbell came barreling toward us, the wall next to him exploded in a burst of green fire. Warbell tumbled and crashed to the ground, coming to a stop mere feet away from my truck.
I got out of the truck immediately and heard Colander bang the door open on the other side. All around Warbell’s body I could see a bubbling foam exuding from his skin that began flowing across the pavement, and when it hit the green fire, with a hiss and a puff of blackish smoke, the fire went out. Warbell saw me.
“Walter,” he said.
Then from over the roof of Pass the Gas Station came a figure, and it took me a moment to recognize what the horrible nightmare vision was. It was the massive orange tyrannosaurus, now flying, the air around its body seeming to vibrate as the tech-enhanced creature skimmed over the roof. On its shoulders were biomechanical cannons, the same kind I must have seen emerge from Furbud’s body.
The cannons turned and aimed at Warbell’s fallen body.